... and make up for it by finishing with legitimate poetry.
August is a fickle season, a human season. Summer simmers and winter shivers, and spring's a night owl in the morning. Fall is that troubled teen: graceful, violently shifting, whimsical, moody, a vibrant, fragile life. When the tears of trees trouble the earth in crimson sheets and cotton clouds sheepishly graze the sky, and the birds skedaddle south or wriggle deeper into their nests, the cork of fall from summer severs us, and our lives flare into a temper of pigments. We are a glass beauty, angelic, translucent, brittle as first frost beneath smoky stars. We are fall.
At some point in my life, I developed a habit of waking in the cradle of night for a bathroom break. During these instances, I write down whatever is on my mind, briefly, on my phone. At first, I was reluctant to own a smart phone. Given no choice, I've discovered some very attractive features (taking easy notes in the dark). Most often, my "stroke of genius" at 3 in the morning is not worth contemplating in the morning. Occasionally, I remember dreams, and those I frequently write down as inspiration, and avenues into my subconscious.
If you send a string, I'd follow its lead
where'er my heart it may bring
through a whisper, if a light
into darkness beyond night
seas a storm may rend asunder
yet tarry not the tides
for whose smile I climb
up mountains high
pluck
a flower from the gods
or swim up the styx
for a momentofyourtime
I'll surrender all of mine
About as raw a poem as could possibly be. Even as I transfer it from my phone into this blog, I yearn more than anything to edit and prettify the rawness. I probably will, eventually. But I don't often sleep write poetry. You know how it is when you've committed so much time into a practice, habit, activity that your dreams and thoughts are rife with that activity? Like putting a puzzle together so many hours that, even sleeping, you are clicking pieces together in your dreams. Or reading a book hour after hour or studying for a test, and as you lie in bed, your fingers are twitching as they highlight another line, pen another reminder, or your eyes scan left to right and invent new stories for your subconscious reading pleasure. Maybe I read too much poetry these last couple of days, and now my subconscious tries, desperately, to formulate imagery from the sanctums of sleeping story. If so, I hope it continues.
Eventually, I'll be capable of poetry (or some semblance thereof). Nothing's so poetic as the palette of autumn
Under the Harvest Moon
by Carl Sandburg
Under the harvest moon,
When the soft silver
Drips shimmering
Over the garden nights,
Death, the gray mocker,
Comes and whispers to you
As a beautiful friend
Who remembers.
Under the summer roses
When the flagrant crimson
Lurks in the dusk
Of the wild red leaves,
Love, with little hands,
Comes and touches you
With a thousand memories,
And asks you
Beautiful, unanswerable questions.
And a little John Donne Holy Sonnet 14 (always a favorite):
Batter my heart, three-person'd God, for you
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend
Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurp'd town to another due,
Labor to admit you, but oh, to no end;
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captiv'd, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love you, and would be lov'd fain,
But am betroth'd unto your enemy;
Divorce me, untie or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.
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